When the Polk County Commission receives a copy of the Efficiency Commission’s report next month, some members of the panel might want to take a look at it.

For most of them, it will be the first time they’ve ever seen some of it even though they voted to approve the recommendations it contains.

One of the things the commission’s consultant MGT of America and Chairman Richard Weiss have been very efficient about is keeping the list of recommendations and the body of draft reports explaining the rationale for the recommendations out of the public eye.

The consultants claimed they could do this because these were “working papers” and persisted with that claim after being told there is no such exemption from Florida’s public records law, according to the Florida Attorney General’s office.

This issue finally came to a head during the final meeting Tuesday night when member Lillian Lima spoke up and wondered how she or anyone else on the panel could intelligently vote on the recommendations presented to them without knowing the background.

The only people who have had copies of the various versions of the consultant’s latest report are members of handpicked subcommittee Weiss appointed last year.

Also, unlike the first Efficiency Commission, there has been no website to allow the public to follow what the group was doing, which is perhaps one reason it was unsurprising that no one showed up to speak at the public hearing last month.

The public hearing itself was a bit of a kerfuffle.

Weiss had not planned one until I pointed out that the charter required it.

He initially disputed what I said, but after further checking acknowledged I was right and hastily set it up.

Interestingly, the topic that generated the most discussion Tuesday night was the proposal by Sam Killebrew to ask the County Commission to place a charter amendment on the ballot to eliminate the requirement that there be an Efficiency Commission at all. He argued the process is not cost-effective.

Others members disagreed.

They argued the Efficiency Commission process provides the only shot anyone outside of government has to provoke some critical thinking about how government operations could be improved.